The ocean was rough enough last night to wake me up, but not really disturb me. The rough seas continued today though, I finally understand the saying about sea sickness:
“First you feel like you’re going to die, and then you wish you would die.”
Actually, it’s not really that bad. Once your stomach is empty, it’s empty after all. And who doesn’t want an excuse for napping?
The day was not unstructured though. We had a mandatory AECO briefing. The Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators prepares all visitors so that they will have minimal impact on the fragile ecosystem and the humans who live here. It was well done. A lot of the guidelines would be true in many natural places: take only pictures, ask before taking photos of people, don’t pick the plants, don’t pet the wildlife, or even a sled dog.
We also had a boot fit check. We borrow excellent muck boots to go on land. Zodiac landings are usually wet, and then the trails are also likely to be wet. Each cabin has a locker at “base camp,” a locker/mud room that is the point of departure for excursions. It’s a pretty swank space if you’re like me and have spent years thinking about how to get in and out of a living space with as little grit transfer as possible.
Because our group is a Colorado College alumni tour, we are accompanied by geology professor Christine Siddoway. This afternoon she gave a wonderful talk about the catastrophic geologic forces that have shaped the ocean floor and therefore the land masses in this part of the world.
There was a lot to learn and my three big take-always:
*Iceland and Greenland were together and magma activity pushed Greenland away. The activity is still present in Iceland, of course.
*There is a deep sea waterfall where icy water from the Artic pours down a huge waterfall on the ocean floor to mix with warmer water from the North Atlantic. This waterfall is three times as high as any on land.
*There was a global warming and then cooling in a relatively short period of time (geologically speaking) at the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal maximum, 56 million years ago. A big factor in the cooling was the bloom of diatoms in the ocean that then died and sunk, taking the carbon they’d photosynthesized with them.
I did step outside for a breath of fresh air with Mark.
Fingers crossed that anchoring tomorrow and zodiac tours around the Skjoldungen fjords in Eastern Greenland will be the end of feeling green.
Here’s the “crackly” fire in our cabin. Real cracking, real cozy, but virtual flames.
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